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Article: She done us right; comedic movie star Mae West was addressing such then-provocative material as intercourse, homosexuality, drag queens and prostitution in the 1920s.(REEL WORLD)
- Article from:
- USA TODAY
- Article date:
- May 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Society for the Advancement of Education. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IN LIGHT OF THE CURRENT FCC campaign to crack down on TV indecency, one cannot help but wonder what Chairman Kevin Martin would have made of the incomparable Mae West, the film legend whose comically sexy axioms ("When women go wrong, men go right after them.") helped bring about the cinema censorship code of 1934.
Just who or what was Mae West? She most resembled a female impersonator ... with the verbal wit of Oscar Wilde. Armed with this repartee, West transformed a small, pleasantly plump, over 40 physical form into an inspired parody of sex. Like many of her contemporaries, from Will Rogers to the Marx Brothers, she came to sound films with an established ...